How to make tempura at home. Step by step guide.

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Hi everyone it's kunihiro thank you for coming  back to my kitchen. Today I'm going to show you   how to make tempura step by step. So let's begin. Okay so first I want to show you  the ingredients in tempura batter.   I have 100 grams of cake flour, 180 milliliters of  water, and one large size egg. Now there are a few   things I want you to remember when making tempura  batter. First, the biggest enemy of tempura batter   is gluten. Gluten produces when the protein  contained in flour mixes with water. So the   more gluten in your tempura butter the less  crispy and heavier your tempura becomes.   So, to achieve light and crispy tempura you  have to use flour with the least protein content   which is cake flour. And the second important  thing is that all ingredients must be   cold when mixing because warmer temperatures  will produce gluten quickly. So please cool all   the ingredients in the fridge first including the  cake flour. So while waiting for them to cool down   we'll prepare all the other ingredients first  and come back to making the tempura batter.   Today I'm using eggplant, carrot, broccoli,  shiso leaf, kabocha squash, shiitake mushrooms,   and shrimp. When making tempura, I recommend  using relatively dry vegetables like those.   Watery vegetables such as cucumber and tomato  make tempura coating soggy very quickly. So   please avoid them. And the best size for the  shrimp is 16 to 20 counts per pound. You don't   need anything bigger than that. Now, let's cut  vegetables. The first one is kabocha squash.   This one is kind of hard so  you need both hands to cut it. The thickness of each slice is about 5 millimeters  once deep-fried it will shrink a little so   if you cut it thinner than that, you won't taste  the kabocha but if you cut it thicker than that,   tempura coating will burn before kabocha  cooks completely so please be careful.   The next one is carrot you don't need to  peel the skin but please make sure to wash   it first. Cut it diagonally. The thickness is  the same as kabocha squash five millimeters.   The next one is broccoli. Since I will make  tempura with a small amount of oil today,   if the broccoli is too big, it will touch the  bottom of the pot and get burnt quickly so I   will cut it in half and make it smaller.  Okay, the next one is shitake mushroom.   First please cut off the stem turn it  over and tilt the knife a little bit   and make four shallow cuts at the center  of the mushroom to make it look prettier.   When making those cuts, please  don't change the angle of the knife.   You only need to rotate the mushroom  and make shadow cuts at the same angle. Shiso leaf is very simple you  just need to cut off the stem.   That's it. Next, I'll show  you how to cut eggplant. Please cut off the top. Then split it in half. Then make a few cuts through  the eggplant lengthwise.   But leave the edge connected. Then at the  fourth cut, please cut all the way through   and make a few more cuts again, but again  make sure to leave the top part connected.   Now press it gently with your  fingers and fan out the eggplant.   Those cuts will not only make eggplant look  more beautiful but also shorten the frying time.   So one two three and cut all the  way and one two three. That's it Okay, we are done with all the  vegetables. So now, let's prepare shrimps.   The first thing we do is take  off the shell until this line. And next, remove this spiky shell above the tail.   This part contains some water.  So if you don't remove it,   the water will pop and oil will splatter when  deep-frying. So please don't forget to remove it.   And once you finish removing  shells from all the shrimps,   make a shallow incision on the back  of the shrimp to remove the vein. Once it's open, you should see a vein in the  middle. Well, this one doesn't have it. If you   don't see the vein at this point, don't cut any  deeper than this. Sometimes they don't have it.   Okay, this one has a vein. So please  take it out with your knife like this.   Then the next thing we do is cut off the tip of  the tail a little bit and make it look nicer. After cutting, the tail will look  like this. These edges will stand out   and make your shrimp tempura look more beautiful. Then, open up the tail and scrape excess water and  dirt out of the tail using the tip of the knife.   Once again, if you skip this part, the  water will pop and oil will splatter   when deep-frying. So please don't skip  this part. Plus by cleaning the tail,   beautiful red color will come out once deep-fried.  After cleaning, the tail will look like this.   And once you finish cleaning the tail, please  wash them once and take off remnants of the   vein and dirt on the tail. Then dry the  shrimps with paper towels very well.   If you don't dry them well at this point,  your shrimp tempera won't become crispy.   Instead, it will become soggy. Excess moisture  on ingredients is another enemy of tempura.   Next, please put 5-6 shallow incisions  on the belly side of the shrimps.   Please don't cut too deep. Only  about 2 millimeters is fine.   Next, place the shrimp on the belly side down   and press it down against the cutting board  with your fingers to break the muscles. I'm doing this to prevent the shrimps  from curling up when deep-frying. And shrimp is ready. This is the final form  before deep-frying. I'll show you one more time.   This time, please listen to the  sounds when I break the muscles. And go over one more time and make sure  you don't hear any more breaking sounds. that's it. Next, i'm going to show you  how to make tempura sauce.   So to make tempura sauce, you need 100 milliliters  of mirin, 100 milliliters of soy sauce,   and 400 milliliters of dashi. Okay so first  please add mirin and soy sauce to dashi.   And bring it to a boil. And once it  starts boiling, turn down the heat   and let it simmer for 2 more minutes so that  the alcohol in the mirin will evaporate. and 2 minutes later, turn  off the heat and the sauce is   ready. I'm going to heat it again  just before I serve tempura.   Next, I'll prepare some grated daikon radish  I'm going to add it to my tempura sauce later. Please transfer the grated  daikon radish into a strainer. And squeeze the juice out gently. Don't squeeze  too much. We want to keep some moisture in it.   So after squeezing, the grated daikon will  look like this. It's still nice and moist. Next, I'm going to coat all the ingredients  with cake flour. So please get some cake   flour on a tray. Then put the ingredients  on it. Cover them with the cake flour. Then dust off the excess flour.   That's it. Coating with flour will help  tempura batter stick to ingredients better. Shitake mushrooms and broccolis have uneven  surfaces so you need to dust off the excess   flour very well. Otherwise, the excess flour  left in them will make your tempura very soggy And don't forget to fan out the  eggplant before putting it in the flour. And shiso leaf needs coating only on the backside. And when you do shrimp, please coat only the  meat portion. The tail doesn't need a coating. So after coating with flour,  they will look like this. Now that we have finished preparing  all the other ingredients,   let's make tempura batter. The first thing  you have to do is sieve the cake flour with   a strainer. By doing this, the cake flour  will dissolve more quickly in the water. Next, put the egg into the water  and stir it until well mixed. Then please add the cake flour into  the mixture little by little and mix. A very important point when mixing  tempura batter is not mixing too much.   If you mix it too much more gluten will  produce and your tempura will become soggy.   So I'm not really mixing it it's more like  i'm sinking the cake flour into the mixture. After mixing, your tempura batter should look like  this. It's very watery and has lots of lumps in it   but that's totally fine. This is the consistency  I look for. Okay since all the prep is done,   let's start heating oil. So fill a  medium-sized pot with vegetable oil   up to 3 centimeters and  turn on the heat to medium.   Alright, so this is the setup when I make tempura.  Basically, I keep everything within my reach   so I place the cooling rack on the left of the  oil. So as soon as temper is ready i can put   the tempura on the rack. And I place my sieve  here. I use this one to remove tempura bits   from the oil so that I can keep the oil clean.  And unwanted tempura bits go into this bowl.   The oil is right in the middle. And I place the  tempura batter next to it but not too close to   the oil because I don't want my tempura batter  to be warm. And all the ingredients are placed   next to the tempura batter. So I can just grab  it, dip in the batter, and drop in the oil.   And I keep a clean towel here to wipe my  hand since I touch tempura batter often. And the chopsticks are here. I use  them when I touch tempura in the oil.   If you don't have chopsticks, a tong is fine too. Okay, first let's check the temperature of the oil   so you need to drop a little bit of  tempura batter into the oil like this. The tempura batter sank to the bottom  and one two seconds later came back up.   That is about 150 to 160 degrees  Celsius and it's still too low. It's after 30 seconds. Let me try one more  time. So drop the tempura batter into the oil.   This time the tempura batter sank to  the bottom and came right back up.   That is about 160 to 170 degrees Celsius and it's  a suitable temperature for deep frying vegetables,   especially when making tempura  with a small amount of oil. Okay so let me start with kabocha squash. So dip  them in the batter and drop them into the oil. And if they stick to each other like this,  you have to separate them right away before   the batter gets hard. If you wait too long,  the batter will come off when separating them.   And don't forget to recheck the temperature at  this point. And if you notice the temperature   went down a lot, you need to turn up the  heat. But don't worry too much because   the temperature is not gonna drop drastically  unless you overcrowd the pot with ingredients.   So when I make tempura at home I always cook  little by little to control the temperature of   the oil more easily. I always cook tempura between  medium and low heat and never on high heat. and remove tempura bits  constantly to keep the oil clean. Flip them over every minute otherwise the  bottom side of kabocha will get burnt before   it cooks completely. Recheck the temperature and  maintain 160 to 170 degrees celsius all the time. After deep frying them for about 3 minutes,  you will notice the cooking sounds get quieter   and you'll see fewer bubbles around the  kabocha. Those are the signs tempura is   ready. So please take it out, shake  off the oil, and put it on the rack.   At this time please do not stack  the tempura on top of each other. please clean up the oil. Check the temperature and  deep fry next ingredient.   Okay, the next one is carrots. So dip them  in the batter and drop them into the oil. The cooking time for this one  is about two minutes and a half.   So just like a Kabocha squash, all you  have to do is flip them over every minute, check and maintain the temperature sometimes,   and keep the oil clean until  the carrots are fully cooked. Finally, shake off the excess  oil and put it on the rack. And when you deep fry shiitake mushrooms, put  them into the oil with the cap facing up. If you   put them in the oil upside down, the batter on the  top part will come off and it doesn't look good.   30 to 40 seconds later when the batter on  the top sets a little you can flip them over. After that, flip them over every  minute and deep fry them for a total of   three minutes. Please don't forget to clean  up the oil and maintain the temperature. The next one is eggplant. Please fan  out the eggplant and dip it in the   batter like this and gently put it into  the oil with the skin side facing up. And if you want to give additional  coating on the skin side,   please apply the batter like this. It  makes the eggplant look much prettier. And when the coating on the top sets  a little, flip the eggplant over.   Since eggplant is relatively easy to get burnt,   I recommend flipping them over every 40 seconds.  And deep fry them for a total of 2 minutes. And when deep frying broccolis  dip them in the batter,   shake off the excess batter a little, and put  them into the oil with the smooth side down. One minute later flip them over but please don't  leave them florets facing down for a long time   because florets get burnt very quickly. So 20 to 30 seconds later,  please flip them back again   and leave them like this for another one minute  or so. And just before taking them out of the oil,   flip them one more time and deep fry for 20  seconds, and make the florets side crispy. 20 seconds later flip them back  and take them out of the oil.   The total deep-frying time is  two and a half to three minutes   if you want to leave a little crunchiness in  the middle I recommend two and a half minutes. And when you deep fry shiso leaf, get the  batter only on the backside of the shiso leaf. And put it into the oil with the  front side up let me do one more And after 30 seconds, flip them once  and deep fry for another 10 seconds. Then flip them back and take them out of the oil. the cooking time for shiso leaf is only 40  seconds. If you deep fry longer than that, shiso   leaf will lose its color so please be careful.  Finally, I am going to make shrimp tempura.   The suitable oil temperature for deep  frying shrimp is 170 to 180 degrees celsius   at this temperature range tempura batter  barely touches the bottom and comes back up. Now, take one piece of shrimp, make sure to  hold the tail and dip it in the batter like this   and gently put it in the oil  with the belly side facing up. And as soon as the shrimp  comes back to the surface,   dip your fingers in the batter and drizzle  the batter over the shrimp like this.   By doing this you can create extra crispy shrimp  tempura since the deep-frying time for shrimp is   only one minute to one minute and a half, please  apply the additional batter quickly. Otherwise,   the shrimp will be overcooked before  the additional batter becomes crispy. So   I recommend deep frying one shrimp at a  time until you get comfortable with it.   Okay, this is good. Shrimp tempura is ready. After deep frying everything, please  clean up the oil one last time   and once the oil cools down you can  filter the oil and save it for later use.   If you want to keep the tempura bits,  please spread them out on paper towels   and remove the excess oil.  Then transfer them to a ziplock   and store them in the freezer. I use them  as a topping for udon and soba noodle. Alright, so this is all the tempura I made.  The crispness of the tempura stays for about 30   minutes but tempura is best eaten when it's super  hot and crispy. So I recommend deep frying each   ingredient one more time for 10 to 20 seconds  at 170 degrees Celsius just before serving. I   believe that is the best way to enjoy tempura  at home. And when i arrange tempura on a plate,   I always make it look three-dimensional. So  I always place hard vegetables like carrots   and kabocha squash first and lean the rest  of the vegetables and shrimps against them.   And at the end, put some grated daikon radish next  to the tempura and you delicious tempura is done. Reheat the tempura sauce and pour it  into a bowl and it's ready to eat. Alright, so that's it for today. I hope  you enjoyed watching today's video.   So if you did, please hit the like  button and leave a comment below.   Thank you so much for watching and I  will see you in my next video bye-bye. you
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Channel: Sushi By Kunihiro
Views: 1,784,463
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Keywords: tempura, tempura batter, sushi, sushi by kunihiro, sashimi, japanese food, shrimp tempura, Vegetable tempura
Id: 0pL1sWrFnZM
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Length: 26min 43sec (1603 seconds)
Published: Sat Feb 26 2022
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